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Written by

DAVID ZEMAN, DAVID ASHENFELTER AND JIM SCHAEFER

FREE PRESS STAFF WRITERS

Editor's note: This story ran Sept. 8, 2001 in the Detroit Free Press.

New science and an old strand of hair have added a tantalizing element to the disappearance of legendary Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa.

But as a breakthrough in the case, the discovery from DNA testing may not add much beyond what scent dogs and lab technicians found 26 years ago, legal experts say.

The reason: The new evidence doesn't answer the questions of who killed Hoffa, how they did it and where they disposed of the body.

"As the evidence currently stands, it is extremely unlikely a prosecutor would seek to indict anyone for murder in the Hoffa disappearance, and if a person is indicted the likelihood of conviction is nearly zero," said Steven Kaplan, an assistant Macomb County prosecutor who has handled two murder cases involving bodies that were never found.

The Hoffa case catapulted back onto the national stage Friday amid revelations that new DNA tests had determined that a strand of Hoffa's hair was found in a car thought to have been used in his disappearance on July 30, 1975.

What makes the new evidence intriguing is that it possibly contradicts a long-held assertion by Charles (Chuckie) O'Brien, a Hoffa associate who has denied any involvement in the labor leader's disappearance. But a federal official familiar with the investigation said Friday that the DNA tests now confirm one of Hoffa's hairs was found in a car that O'Brien was driving that day, shortly before Hoffa vanished.

Even so, the finding poses another crucial question: When did the hair get there? And how?

Hoffa's son, current Teamsters President James P. Hoffa, said Friday at a news conference in New York that he hoped the new information might finally help solve the mystery.

"We'd always hoped there would be a deathbed confession," he said. "It hasn't happened yet. Hopefully, through DNA, we now have a breakthrough."

But the elder Hoffa's daughter, Barbara Crancer, a judge in St. Louis, is not optimistic.

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"I don't think it's going to lead to any indictment or conviction," she said Friday.

O'Brien declined to comment. But his lawyer, William Bufalino II of Clinton Township, said the FBI can't seem to figure out whether O'Brien is really involved. An FBI agent in 1995 assured O'Brien in writing that he was not a suspect, according to a copy of the letter provided to the Free Press.

In the letter -- dated Feb. 13, 1995 -- FBI special agent Andrew Sluss of the Detroit office asked O'Brien for his cooperation in the investigation, then added: "I do not consider you a suspect in this matter."

Sluss did not return a phone call Friday seeking comment. John Bell, the FBI agent in charge of the Detroit office, said he was unaware of the letter, but did not think it would hurt any potential prosecution.

Hoffa disappeared from outside the now-defunct Machus Red Fox restaurant, at Telegraph and Maple in Bloomfield Township. He had gone there to meet with Anthony (Tony Jack) Giacalone, a Detroit mob boss, and Anthony Provenzano, New Jersey Teamsters boss and Mafia associate.

Neither showed up. And Giacalone and Provenzano, who have since died, denied any meeting had been scheduled.

Investigators believe Hoffa, 62, was picked up outside the restaurant and killed. Since the beginning, investigators have had evidence that Hoffa had been in a 1975 maroon Mercury Marquis Brougham driven by O'Brien. O'Brien had borrowed the car from his friend Joey Giacalone, son of Anthony Giacalone.

Investigators and Hoffa's family have long said that O'Brien -- who had been taken in by Hoffa as a child -- was one of the few people who could persuade Hoffa to get into a car that day.

O'Brien told police that Hoffa was never in the car and that he was running errands.

But police dogs, after sniffing clothing worn the day before he disappeared, found Hoffa's scent in the rear of the Mercury. And FBI technicians found a "single, three-inch brown head hair" in the car that had "characteristics similar" to Hoffa's hair, according to law enforcement files obtained by the Free Press in 1992.

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Late last year the FBI had the hair tested, using the new DNA technology, against hair from Hoffa's brush. It matched.

Bloomfield Hills attorney James W. Burdick, who represented O'Brien after Hoffa vanished, ridiculed the significance of the new DNA evidence, saying it doesn't add much to the case.

"It's objectively stupid to think O'Brien had anything to do with Hoffa's death," said Burdick.

He said O'Brien was too indiscreet to be trusted with such a high-profile killing. "He'd be the last guy in this nation you would want to know your secrets," Burdick said.

Still, legal experts and Hoffa aficionados alike were fascinated by the latest turn in the mystery.

But legal experts interviewed Friday were nearly unanimous that the DNA match, without more evidence, was unlikely to put anyone behind bars.

Kaplan and other lawyers said O'Brien could offer myriad explanations for why Hoffa's hair turned up in the back seat of the car borrowed from Joe Giacalone. Among the obstacles that prosecutors would face:

Hoffa had long-standing ties to the Giacalone family and could have been in the car long before his disappearance. A strand of hair is easily lost from the scalp, and could have been transferred by someone who had come into contact with Hoffa.

Even if prosecutors could prove Hoffa was in the car on that day, they would still need to show that O'Brien -- or any in an endless cast of mob operatives -- was responsible for Hoffa's death.

Bufalino said that after receiving the FBI letter six years ago, O'Brien never heard from the agency until three weeks ago, when Sluss and another agent followed his client for four days and stopped him in Florida.

They asked for a meeting and a lie detector test, Bufalino said, and O'Brien refused to do so without a subpoena.

Bufalino said that contrary to a published report Friday, the FBI has not reinterviewed O'Brien, 66, who is in declining health. Bufalino said that in the last 14 months, O'Brien has had two cancer surgeries, a gallbladder operation and four heart bypass procedures.

"They've been threatening for 26 years that they're going to prosecute Chuckie," Bufalino said. "If they're going to do it, lo and behold, let's do it while we still have a few witnesses left."

If there ever are murder-related charges in Hoffa's death, the case probably would be tried in Oakland County because such cases are handled under state laws rather than federal, legal experts said.

Oakland County Prosecutor David Gorcyca said he would welcome the case if federal officials present it to him.

Free Press lawyer Herschel Fink said he believes the FBI decided to conduct the DNA tests so it could persuade a federal judge in Detroit that the investigation is ongoing, thereby blocking the newspaper's efforts to make the Hoffa case file public.